Sunday May 25, 1975

Trinity Sunday. Day Three at Grassington: Nice day. Beautiful weather, though probably just a bit windy. After waking up at the same hideous, and unusual time as yesterday we once again partook of a fried breakfast, which isn't agreeing with John at all.

We intended going off to Malham, but because of the time we changed our minds and decided to go swimming at Skipton Baths. Spend a good afternoon in Skipton, and feel greatly rejuvenated after my first splash around in a pool for what seems like decades.

Back at the tent we lounge around in deckchairs listening to the Top 20 on Radio One. Well, Pete and myself did this. John and Chris were busy frying tea.

After the traditional fried meal we bung a few stones in the river and collect wood for another camp fire and generally prepare ourselves for the coming onslaught of alcohol.

To Linton and Grassington drinking. John is back on form again and we manage to deplete the beer stocks of several Yorkshire pubs.

The second camp fire proved successful again, but we are all melancholy because it's our last night. Chris was acting daft when he saw the full moon, complaining that he believed in the likes of Dracula and other creations of Hammer Horror Inc. & Warner Brothers. It was impossible to make him see reason. We ate baked potatoes on the fire, and argued whether Princess Anne had done the right thing by marrying Mark Phillips.

Bed at 2.30.

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Saturday May 24, 1975

Day Two at Grassington: Don't awake until about 11am which is quite remarkable. I always imagined the campers would have to crawl out the sack at the crack of dawn because of the rumpus created by cocks, and other various poultry, or because of acute cold, and lumpy ground, &c. But strangely enough, the night was tranquil and I slept like a log throughout.

After a greasy breakfast and a splash in the river we drove into Grassington for a general potter about. Nothing of great consequence, so we motored around aimlessly and fell upon Kettlewell. The sky was very dull, and the air bracing, and so we nipped into the nearest warm haven for a few hours. As it happened it turned out to be a pub, a most congenial experience. We came out feeling a good deal more good humoured then when we went in , and so our tripwasn't in vain.

Aysgarth was the next port of call and we were unimpressed by the falls therein. Not a particularly stunning sight.

Back to Grassington's ale houses in the evening, and John ended up drinking tomato joices because of a stomach disorder. He blames all the fried nosh, but I can't help thinking it has something to do with the alcoholic intake of yesterday.

Back to the tent for a camp fire until after 1am. We're all getting on better than I imagined we would. Peter isn't the swine I always imagined he'd be to camp with.

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Friday May 23, 1975

Day one of the Open Event at Grassington. At 6.30 John and I go to the Hare in order that I can pick up my jacket which I accidentally left under the juke box on Wednesday. We stay for a few drinks. Peter and Chris come in. They're laden with the precious tent and various other camping odds and ends.

Mum and Dad go to Scotland tomorrow. In the new car too. They haven't been off, quite alone, for any length of time before (not since the famous honeymoon anyway) so it should be quite a fantastic break.

Back to the Camping Trip: Horror of Horrors! John's car broke down near the Devonshire Arms, Bolton Abbey, and we had to dump the car in the pub car park. The four of us piled into Pete's van and we bombed into the Dales, weighed down with tons of camping gear and miscellaneous rubbish.

After to failing to get on a camp site we deposit ourselves in a field, next to the Wharfe, about ten minutes out of Grassington. The tent was erected before 9.30 and we made the pub in Grassington shortly after. Although the pubs close legally at 11pm, the Forester's Arms in Grassington was open to customers at 11.30, which amused John no end, though Peter did seem a little edgy. ________.

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Thursday May 22, 1975

Gillian and I go see 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail', a full-length feature film, at the ABC Cinema in Bradford. Really hilarious. We both sat snorting like pigs throughout, and ached with the strain of laughing all the way home on the bus.

We called in on Naomi for ten minutes or so, and I walked Gillian home.

Home at about 11pm to see the new CAR!! A Toyota Corona or something. A beautiful shade of red, and quite the joy of Papa, who vows he's never seen anything like it. He never imagined that the day would dawn when he was the owner of a car free from rust!

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Wednesday May 21, 1975

Another beautiful day. Sarah comes into town with me at lunchtime and I drag her around several banks and a Post Office - on Barclaycard business. After paying up this month's installment we walk leisurely back to the YP.

Sarah really is a lovely bird but somehow I never quite feel at ease with her. I'd have asked out years ago if only I'd been blessed with the right amount of courage and 'get up and go' spirit. She will be 23 in November, but I don't suppose that matters much. After all, I am 20. Anyway, what is the use in me getting on like this? Grief, I take a gorgous bird out for a lunchtime drink and I come home with ideas of starting a permanent union! Oh, I forgot to mention that when I said we'd gone round Leeds. At 1.40 we called in for a quick one before resuming our duties in the dismal structure of Yorkshire Post Newspapers Ltd. I'm still in love with CB anyway and I don't care if you think I'm a crazy, mixed up youth who happens to fall in love with everything in eye make-up, because I would never feel like I do about Sarah if Christine hadn't resumed her relations with 'Lord Baden-Powell'.

Christine rang at 4.15 and said she'd be in the Hare tonight and went on to say that she'd be 'lost and all alone' at the weekend when I am away. Every time I mention Gary she laughed as though something was in the air, but refused to tell me any more. Anyway fans, hang about until midnight when I'll complete the chronicles of today's events.

.... Later: You'll be hanging around for a long time if you expect any more tonight.

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Tuesday May 20, 1975

Hot day. At lunchtime I have a few photographs taken for my ten year passport. They look really grotty, but not all that bad when you think it costs about £2 to be photographed by a cravat-wearing Old Etonian with a lisp and double-barrelled name for something very similar, but probably a bit more glossy. Don't take this as an insult to Lord Snowdon please, because nothing was further from my mind. OK, he may be an Old Etonian with a camera, but he doesn't lisp, and hasn't worn a cravat in donkey's years.

At 4.30 armed with a bottle of Lucozade I marched on Leeds Infirmary and threw myself upon my ailing aunt, the one and only Mabel Paine. I didn't recognise her at first because she seems to have lost a good deal of weight since we last met, but otherwise she was very cheerful. The thought of having cancer worried her to death (Oops) of course, but they've assured her now that it's all clear. No more treatment required, and by Sunday she'll be a free woman again. I really despise hospitals. The smells and the general lay-out make me weak at the knees. It was so nice to get out into the fresh air at about 6 o'clock - away from the stench of death and illness. I only hope to God that I'll never have to spend any length of time in such a place. Mind you, by the time I'm 60 they'll have done away with hospitals and they'll be injecting OAPs with cyanide. The nice, easy way out.

See 'Edward VII' at 9 o'clock, and retire at 11.

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Monday May 19, 1975

Oh well, what can I write about today?____It happens to have been an ordinary Monday.

Work was busy. Sarah looked stunning, but I can't fill three quarters of a page with those small details. After all, I'm no Shakespeare or Oscar Wilde. Especially no OscarWilde. I don't want to go down in history labelled a 'Brown Hatter' or a Lord Alfred Douglas, or 'Pansy'.

What's in the news then? His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales is growing a beard. The Daily Mail says he's following in the tradition of King Edward VII and his grandfather, George V. But King George V is not the grandfather of the Prince of Wales. George V, as you well know, was grandfather of the Queen, and subsequently the great-grandfather of the bearded heir.


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